Aguinaldo was conducting him down a long corridor of the monastery to his bedroom, when Duckworth recognised an odour that was not incense. It was quite unmistakably a mixture of rank tobacco and garlic. Now, his host’s cigars he had found singularly good, and the hidalgo did not reek of garlic. Moreover, the smell was too strong to be the ‘drag’ of one individual, however high. A less intelligent man than the Major would have recognised that the chances were that he was in a brigands’ nest. Duckworth felt his appreciation of the French he had seen that morning increase immensely. But for them, he might by that time have died rather painfully. As it was, he was confident from the admirable manner in which they had attended to the business in hand, there was nothing to fear from the Spanish gentlemen of the hills for some time to come. As for Aguinaldo, he could, and would, wring his neck as soon as look at him, for the Major was certainly no weaker a man than Marshal Beresford. Nevertheless, he lay down with his pistols under his pillow and his drawn sword by his side. The point of his scabbard he had jammed under the door—a most effective wedge. Tired as he was, he could not sleep. He could not even rest. That dull, unusual murmur he had noticed in the courtyard, that never-ceasing, monotonous, subterranean muttering, was unmistakable. It was closer, clearer, and more insistent. It seemed to come now actually from beneath his feet. He tossed impatiently from his couch and leaned out of the open window. The murmur was, if anything, less distinct, and there was nothing to be seen but the unsightly gloom of the pallid limestone cliffs, barely visible in a drip of sickly moonlight that filtered down through the dank atmosphere. It was pleasanter to keep the eyes closed than to look on a scene so sepulchral, and Duckworth was turning away when he noted that the thin rays trembled below him into broken radiance. It was water—the surface of the tank of which he had been told, the innermost of the quadrangles—reflecting the moonbeams. The sinister murmur was caused no doubt by the overflow or escape of the drainage. And this was the bogey that had fretted him. A broad, harsh, yellow glare flashed crudely across the water. Duckworth instinctively stepped away from the window into the darkness of his room. The precaution seemed unnecessary. The cause of the light appeared innocent enough. Through a casement on the opposite side of the quadrangle could be distinguished the form of Don Aguinaldo, silhouetted against the light of a lamp he held in his hand. He appeared to be hanging up some bright-coloured garment beside a row of others on the wall of the chamber. Duckworth could not distinguish details as the glare of the light was between him and them. ‘Inspecting his wardrobe!’ grunted he. ‘I dare say the fellow has as many disguises as a mountebank, and⸺’